Concepts Of The R2P

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MULTISTRATEGIC AND MULTIFACETED CONCEPT OF THE R2P
According to the World Summit Outcome Document 2005, the R2P is based on three pillars, so there is not only one simple definition which can be applied in the Syrian crisis. As Cronogue (2012) says, the R2P involves rights and duties. Also, as Welsh (2013) explains, the R2P involves different actions and elements.

The Pillar I is based on states’ R2P its citizens (World Summit Outcome, 2005). In this case, the Al-Assad Government is not protecting its populations from war crimes and the use of chemical weapons add a more negative value in this duty of protection (United Nations, 2014). In addition, the Resolution 2139 (United Nations, 2014) calls for the Syrian responsibility to protect its citizens as its main duty.

The Pillar II says that (World Summit Outcome, 2005): “the international community should (…) encourage and help states”. It may show that the R2P concept adds other duty to the international community in order to prevent or protect those crimes from the population. In the Syrian case, the international community has claimed that Al-Assad Government needs to protect its citizens and stop these war crimes were not only citizens but also the urbanisation itself have been suffered, until the point that Homs, as an example, was an area declared a world heritage site and now it is completely destroyed (Espinosa, 2014), as well as it has been happening in Aleppo (HRW, 2014), being the target of the conflict the civilians. Furthermore, it is argued that the Syrian Government has not tried to protect them due to its battle against rebels and insurgency.
Furthermore, the international community could not encourage and assist because some of the powerful countries that hav...

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..., Lebanon, Jordan… (United Nations, 2014). Bin Talal and Schwarz (2013) says, the Arab countries are concerned about their responsibility to protect the Syrian population because of the unwillingness of the Al-Assad Government and the alleviation of war crimes.

To sum up, it is visible that the R2P involves numerous duties and obligations, both the international community and each state. Therefore, it appears to be that those who are critical about the R2P should take into account the importance of its multifaceted points and duties and the multifaceted Syrian conflict, where there is a lack of protection of civilians despite the international community is trying to accomplish them within the Syrian conflict framework. Therefore, it might seem that R2P is not dead, in spite of the fact that the concept itself is not fulfilling all of its duties in this conflict.

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